There’s A 5-Second Video That Will Crash Your iPhone And You Won’t Even Know It’s Happening

The Verge’s Tom Warren took it upon himself to show the world a new iPhone exploit designed to make your phone crash, and it all starts with a five-second video link:

The insidious nature of the exploit is that you won’t know you’ve become a victim of it until it’s too late. The way it works is the video continually attempts to play a loop in the background, which over time brings your phone to a grinding halt.

The only way to get out of the crash is to soft-reset the phone by holding down the power and home buttons. A hard-reset, as mentioned in the video above by Warren, would actually wipe the phone and restore it to its original settings. That would have to be done by an in-store technician, and in the case of this exploit, isn’t necessary.

The video is currently making rounds as a rather annoying prank, so be careful when opening links from friends!